e significant facts in an institution for incipient
cases only, where advanced cases, such as are met with by the practicing
physician, are not received.

Unfortunately, the ordinary physician does not always recognize the
disease in its first stages, and a person may suffer for months with
consumption, and even pass the time when the cure of the disease would
be possible, without its being recognized. Such sick persons are treated
for catarrh, for an obstinate cold and bronchitis, for grippe or
malaria, whereas a proper diagnosis of the disease would be a
recognition of the early stages of consumption and thus would prompt the
patient to start at once on the necessary methods for cure. Nor is it
possible to recognize the disease by any one definite indication. The
cough which was once thought to be the deciding symptom is very often
absent until the last stages of the disease. Expectoration of blood is
similarly one of the last symptoms, exhibited only when too late for
remedial measures. The presence of the tuberculosis bacillus or "T. B."
in the sputum is also not generally found until the tissue of the lungs
has become well advanced towards destruction, too late for remedy.

Experts in diagnosis attach great importance to family history, and have
learned to expect the disease in persons when exposure to contagion is
inevitable. They will recognize the disease from evidence not
discernible to regular practitioners. For instance, if one member of a
family is known to be affected, any chronic indisposition in another
member, involving, perhaps, a daily rise in the temperature of the body,
not sufficient to arouse alarm, but apparent in the listless behavior of
the person, may be enough to suggest the beginning of the disease. An
expert may detect the clogging up of the lung tissue by an examination
of the lungs themselves, and probably this direct examination, with a
record of the daily rise and fall of temperature, particularly if the
suspected patient has a listless feeling and a gradual loss of weight,
would be sufficient to suggest the ordinary remedies.

The three remedies, which are nature's own methods, are good food, fresh
air, and rest. It is difficult to say which of these three items is the
most important. Certainly no hope of building up the resistance of the
patient against the inroads of the disease can be expected unless the
patient is thoroughly nourished. One of the sad facts in connection with
those